


Capture the Light

by Oboeist3



Series: TIL Universe Extras/Spinoffs [3]
Category: Wander Over Yonder
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hater-centric, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, TIL Universe, what you might call tragic backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 08:07:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10272077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oboeist3/pseuds/Oboeist3
Summary: The story of first kisses and first cigarettes. They really shouldn't be linked.





	

**Author's Note:**

> warning: homophobia, minor racism, character death, gratuitous use of spanish

It's tomorrow when Peepers and Hater get back to their apartment complex, and they feel the weight of being awake so long. It's so great that Peepers doesn't bother going home, just shucks off the dress shirt and patch and collapses next to Hater in his bed. He's drawn into his arms within seconds, lips pressing soft and familiar against his temple. 

"Did you have fun, cariño?" he says, shifting his arms to better hold him, Peepers' face nosing the crook of his neck. 

"It was nice. I liked hearing about you in grad school. It's hard to believe you were even more of a mess." he hums, turning even his teasing flat. Hater nips at his ear.

"Rude." 

"Not like that, Hater. I just don't get to hear a lot about you, before." he admits, breath fanning across his skin, too warm, but he doesn't move. 

"Do you want to?" Hater asks, a little thrown off. Peepers hadn't seemed interested before, and he was kind of grateful for it. It was a tough thing to look at, sometimes. 

"Mmm. Kind of. I don't wanna bring up things you don't like to think about. But it's good to talk to someone about that stuff, apparently." 

"What do you want me to talk about?" 

"I don't know. Something. Anything. Whatever comes to mind." 

So Hater thinks. And maybe it's because of the conversation they had in the van, about pride, or that Jeff already told most of his good college stories, that he reaches back. Way back. 

"The first boy I ever kissed got himself killed."

* * *

It was nineteen ninety four. East LA. The city is hurting, barely clawing its way back from the something wrong. There are needles in the gutters and shoes hanging off telephone wires. Boys play chicken with the few cars that pass through, whistling and whooping, 'Ai idiota, ai héroe!' Hater isn't among them. 

Of course, he wasn't called Hater then. He wasn't even called Harold, or Harry. They called him el genio, the genius. Listillo, smartass, if they weren't happy. Because he actually paid enough attention in class to not just pass, but do well. Because he asked questions that made the teacher's eyes light up instead of sink into mild despair. Because he finds something worth giving a shit about in Newton and Kepler and Galileo.

He doesn't have many friends. Most of them are girls. 

His exception is Stephan. Stephan Morris. The other boys call him Mort, but he calls him Steven, because there's something extra funny about the way his nose wrinkles when he corrects him. 

"It's Steh-fan, huevón." 

They're the same, but different. They don't fit in with the others, so they stick together. But people know better than to mess with him, he's big, and his temper is legendary. He kicked Juan's ass when he tried to slip him some dope. Tyrone harassed one of his girl friends and lost three teeth. They respect him. 

Stephan isn't that lucky. 

He's twig-thin, spry, almost feminine. He wears Coke-bottle glasses, even though he has contacts. He reads during lunch, during study hall. He knows poetry, he can paint nails without a drop of remover. His Spanish is littered with Columbian slang. His dad isn't there, but he actually sends money, and calls of his own volition. He's practically asking for a beating, and sometimes, people reply. 

He asked Stephan once, if he wanted him to take care of the bullies, but he'd shook his head. 

"I turn the other cheek, amigo." 

(He refrains from pointing out the fact that said cheek is bruised.) 

~~~~

One day, Stephan stumbles into his house looking even worse than usual, pressing paper towels into his side, his eyes red-rimmed and blazing. 

"They shot me." he says as he falls to his knees. "Those motherfuckers fucking shot me!" he yells, more angry than in pain. 

At first, he tries to get him to go to the hospital, but once Stephan points out neither of them has hospital money and really they were shit shots, only grazed him, he settles on patching him up as best he can. He's gotten good at it, but there's no easy way to thread a needle through someone's skin. He lets him hold his free hand, laces their fingers together like a lifeline. And that made him laugh, he remembers. 

"You know what's funny?" Stephan asks, his voice thin and woozy. "They called me a faggot. Of all the insults to choose, that was it. The one that's actually true." 

It's not the best way to come out, but it belongs to him, which is more than a lot of people get. He pauses a moment, eyes still trained on the puckered wound that's curved at a bad angle around bone. It's still his first concern, keeping him alive. So it's easy, too easy, to lean up and place a kiss on his lips, chaste, tiny, as he stabs the needles forcefully into his skin, twice. X marks the spot. 

"Join the fucking club, Stephan." he says, and finishes the job. 

~~~

They don't talk about it. Why should they? Just because they kissed doesn't mean they're anything different. Neither of them feel that way about each other, really. He still likes girls, he might have been dating one when it happened. But they don't forget it. It simmers under everything, meeting up at the chicken place - the name escapes him now - working on school projects, sitting on the roof as Stephan smokes. His first. 

Stephan's last. 

He notices he's not at school, of course, but that doesn't mean anything. He could be sick, or visiting his father, or just skipping, though Stephan refrains more than most. They don't tell each other everything, so he doesn't worry. At first. 

Days turn into weeks, turn into months. He goes to his house, which they've only done once before, because his mama works night-shift and he doesn't want to wake her up. He was sweet like that, Stephan. So it's a surprise when she opens the door, her eyes hopeful for a moment before realizing who he is. She lets him in anyway, makes him watery tea before telling him that he's gone. Vanished overnight. She called the police, after hiding the joints she disapproves but can't really stop him from smoking, but they don't seem concerned. Even though milk carton kids are a thing now, little brown boys haven't earned it yet. It doesn't help that he's seventeen by then, more likely to have left of his own will than anything else. But she knows better. She knows because Stephan isn't that kind of boy, he always leaves a note, even when he's just going to get groceries. She knows because of the envelope that arrived the week after he disappeared, from the community college. 

She asks him to open it, because she doesn't have the heart to, and when he reads the first word, congratulations, she bursts into tears. 

~~~

They find Stephan's body two months before graduation, in a drainage ditch four miles from his house. The police rule it a drug crime, based on the pipe in his pocket and the name on his ID. Columbian kid, wrong side of town, what else could it be? 

They don't know shit. 

Not that he knows either. He suspects, when the school announces his death and some of the boys whisper good riddance, but he doesn't know, can't prove any of them **did** anything. That's what really hurts, the not knowing. Julio's got a gun, but anyone can get a gun here, he's not special. Still, he finds something satisfying when he breaks Julio's nose the day after graduation, even though that's probably the last thing Stephan would've wanted. 

He justifies it by saying that dead boys don't get to have opinions. 

* * *

Peepers is quiet as he talks, listening, absorbing every word with the easy intensity of his. When Hater gets the last word out, he waits a second, two, before asking. 

"Did you go to the funeral?" 

"I tried." he says, unable to properly articulate the raw wrongness of seeing Stephan's father, finally making it to America, his first task to bury the reason he stayed behind. Of seeing his mother, stuck on a loop of tears and holding them back. There's an aunt and two uncles, a gaggle of cousins. A few have Stephan's eyes. The priest talks about Heaven, and how he'll be happy there, and Hater didn't really believe back then but he'd tried for a moment, for his sake. But he doesn't say any of that. 

"I had my first cigarette in the cemetery parking lot." he says, instead, and somehow, Peepers seems to understand. 

Neither of them say anything for a long time, or at least, it feels like it, in the darkness. 

"Thank you." Peepers whispers with a kiss on his neck. 

"What for?" 

"Telling me. You didn't have to, but you did. That's very brave. And I'm sorry, that he's dead. He's deserved better." 

"Yea. He did." 

That's all he has to say about that. 


End file.
